cmph

13 hours ago, ellamalta said:

They are 13 and 16, and used to staying on their own in hotels when we go abroad.  Anyone with recent experience, after this thing was changed?  Will they really fine us, or throw us off the ship?

The posted rule was the same when we traveled last summer. I actually did try to get more clarification on it, b/c you can't book a minor under 18 into a room without someone 21 or older. I wasn't sure whether the supervising adult, as the posted rule referenced, meant 18 and up or 21 and up. I got a sassy response from the NCL rep via chat, reiterating the posted rule without answering my question. I rephrased my question, and the best I got was something along the lines of "ask crew once you're onboard." So - I think none of us is really going to be able to give you a firm answer, b/c apparently enforcement of the posted rules apparently will vary by ship/crew.

I can tell you that absolutely no one batted an eye on the Dawn, when my 14yo got back on the ship without my husband and me. They did not ask if my two kids were together or confirm in any way that our 14yo was with an adult. 

Make sure they realize they aren't going to be able to get off the ship without a parent (assuming they are minors). We left ours (then 14 and 18) onboard last year at one port at the end of the cruise; I doubt anyone realized, to be honest, b/c they just napped in their room. At another port, they got back on while my husband and I stayed ashore. Crew did not care that our 14yo reboarded without a parent but definitely wouldn't let him off without one.

3 hours ago, KeithJenner said:

But if, as others are saying, linking the cabins doesn’t allow your husband to do those things then there is no benefit to linking them.

 

I think that what you are saying is that your husband would like linking the cabins to allow him to book things for multiple cabins without having to log in, which I agree would probably be useful for some people. The problem is that it doesn’t allow that (apparently) on NCL.

Yes, thank you for correctly interpreting my hastily dashed off follow-up! (Except for the husband wanting to do it part... he wants ME to do it lol.) For whatever reason, my brain read julig22's post #4 as a general comment, not specific to NCL, and reservation linking is useful everywhere else I've encountered. And yes, I realize I'm on an NCL board at the moment - the synapses were not firing apparently! 

11 minutes ago, julig22 said:

??? What did I miss?? You just said that you have to call on each reservation unless you know everyone's login and password. 

I meant that, in order to avoid calling, if you want to book things yourself online in your own time - you have to have login and password info to access separate reservations. I recognize that plenty of people find it easiest to call. If you're a few hours away from that time zone, not as easy.

9 minutes ago, julig22 said:

Just to add, as far as I know, there is absolutely no advantage to linking reservations.

My husband would disagree with you, b/c not having linked reservations means he has to actually log in and do things instead of me doing all of the things for the whole family LOL. (I refuse to try to keep track of log in information for multiple NCL accounts, sadly for him haha.)

For a non-nuclear family, I do agree. It's just kind of a pain for a nuclear family split across reservations b/c, even with the same PCC for both, they have to access multiple reservations and repeat all the activities. 

You're not missing anything, and you're not alone (I did the same thing last year and was convinced I was just not looking in the right place). It is definitely startling if you're used to other lines that let you see proof of linkage when you are logged in, but you won't see anything when you are logged in on NCL or get any kind of email notification that they are linked. Just have to trust that it was done.

If you don't want to call, then one person from each reservation will have to log in and book, separately.  

We just stayed in Victoria for a couple nights last week (part of a land-based trip, not cruise). It's a very pretty port area, but it's really a dead zone for activities. You can walk along the coastline, which is lovely.

In general, manage expectations, though. I did notice that some places had unusually late closings, plus lots of late evening activity downtown, but I don't know if that extends into Sept. Ex: the Royal BC was open until 10:30pm on Fri. 

Unless a 30min walk each way into the downtown area is ok for your party, I'd book a tour of some sort, personally, as a flood of people off a large ship are not all going to find rides into town easily; the flow of people was remarkable to see from the bus we were on at one point, and I was very curious where they all planned to go. I'm not sure I ever saw a regular taxi; lots of buses, plus pedicabs and buggies downtown. 

FWIW, we did not plan on tea, as the allergy ratings were not optimistic for the Empress. Some tour guides suggested other local alternatives to the Empress, but evening hours are likely dicey.

Before you buy a soda package, be aware it is exactly that. Other lines have non-alcoholic packages that include mocktails and fresh-squeezed juice. Some kids may just want soda, so NCL's soda package is perfect for them; others might be disappointed. And some kids just want the free included juice at breakfast and free included lemonade and flavored water the rest of the day - in which case, save your money!

We sailed NCL on a Baltic cruise last summer. Just confirming - the FAQ posted above is correct. Our 18yo could drink anything and was not limited to beer/wine, no waiver needed. We asked the first time we ordered, b/c there was still a sign stating 21+ at the bar, and they said just ignore that for Europe sailings.   

On 5/9/2024 at 4:08 PM, Shmmr27 said:

The only issue is that the cruise is now a couple of months away and there are no excursions on our Norwegian Dawn into Berlin. We've had this cruise booked for a year and I've read many posts and it sounds like there used to be offerings from cruise ships into Berlin that would take the whole day but at least guarantee the ship won't leave with you , I keep checking the excursion list thinking maybe it will be added, but nothing still. Does Norwegian often add excursions last minute or now that we are two months out- is their list pretty finalized and likely they aren't offering an excursion into the city?

 

Thank you very much!!

We did a Baltic last summer, which included Warnemunde. We booked about 10mo in advance or so, and I started planning right away since it was port-intensive. I checked myNCL on a near-weekly basis and never saw them add an excursion, but like others said above - super annoying "feature" that you can't even see other options once you have booked something with a time conflict. (Why they can't just grey out or otherwise flag things as unbookable instead, I don't know.) We did half/half NCL and OYO, but I kept an eye on the ports we did OYO in case something good was added, and that never happened. 

However, they definitely did add things once on-board. Not completely new offerings, but more groups/times for the originally listed excursions. Ex: I booked an NCL excursion for Hamina (b/c you can't do anything OYO there), and when we got our tickets onboard, they had changed our time to very early morning. I tried to get switched to a newly offered time, but I wasn't quick enough. So I guess it is possible that they will offer something onboard that isn't showing online, or that you could scoop up someone's canceled reservations (if the issue is that it's already sold out), but I certainly wouldn't plan on that. 

FWIW we had no interest in that long trip to Berlin and did a 9am-3pm excursion into Schwerin, which was lovely, and then had the late afternoon/evening free to wander through Warnemunde. It was the perfect day, in retrospect. That was the only day we saw pier runners, so we definitely had some late returns! 

7 hours ago, mjkacmom said:

I’m confused with it stating under 17 and not under 18, 17 is also a minor.

I thought that was weird, too. I tried to get more info/details on teen-related restrictions from one of the reps via chat last year. I mostly got snark in response, and the advice to ask crew once onboard. 

I just made such a noise that I startled my husband, who said "what's wrong?" The answer was nothing's wrong... I was just looking at a photo of a field of penguins, and omg don't you want to go see a field of penguins? He thinks I'm obsessed with this trip now lol. 

24 minutes ago, ColdCruise said:

Once you visit Antarctica , you’ll be hooked @cmph

went in Feb 2023, going back in 2025

I can absolutely envision that!

And - I was just telling my husband about that exact photo of the penguins, as it happens. I told him "I HAVE to see the penguins flying through the water like this!"

Wow, this is now on my list of cruises to go on! We cruise for the destinations at this point in our lives, and I have to say that this itinerary wasn't on my radar until I read through your thread and saw all of the gorgeous photos of the scenery and wildlife. Thank you so much for sharing!

5 hours ago, tj&3littlecuties said:

Curious about smoke from the casino filtering through deck 6.  Any notice of this?

We are very sensitive to smoke but truly didn't notice any issues coming from the casino this summer. And that was a Baltic cruise, so it had a decent number of European and Asian guests who have a higher rate of smoking than we are used to. I did, however, find the smell from the cigar bar to be a little annoying when I walked past. Same deck. The casino is kind of tucked away, while the cigar bar is just out there for you to have to (literally) walk around. Not a deal breaker, but it was more obvious to me than anything coming out of the casino. 

You don't mention how old your kids are. We sailed on the Dawn on a Baltic this summer, with our 2 teens (14 and 18 at the time). I thought the ship itself was fine - nothing exciting, but perfectly fine. My kids thought the arcade was super lame and didn't find the live shipboard entertainment to their tastes, but it was a port-intensive cruise... and teenagers sleep a lot anyway! We thought the kids pool area looked like something we would have gotten a lot of use out of, years ago, and it was nicely separated from the other pool area.

I thought our cabins (oceanview, connecting) were pretty decent, overall. It had great storage, IMO, and we were on a 10-nighter with a pre-stay in Stockholm, so we had a fair amount of stuff. The shower was better than expected. The toilet space was a little ridiculous. They put this see-through door between the toilet and the sink, which really just got in the way, and left no privacy. It was a pointless door, but we had 2 connecting rooms so it wasn't a big deal, just a bit laughable. We had a great room attendant, no complaints there, and we didn't have any issues with a single service per day.

We weren't huge fans of the MDR food, in general, and were surprised just how many issues they had with food supply restocking in Europe. We liked O'Sheehans, parts of the buffet (for the two of us that don't have food restrictions), and 2/3 of our specialty meals. The restaurant service was ok for the most part, if politely indifferent, generally. Outliers went both ways. I should add here that our prior family cruises have been on Disney, and our general impression (teens included) was that service was noticeably less personable; I'm not a total Disney cruise snob (been on Royal, Carnival, HAL, Princess sans kids), and I'm sure others have had not-so-great service on Disney too. But this was definitely the first cruise I've ever been on where I told a waiter that something was wrong with my entree, and he just took it away without trying to fix it even after I explained what was wrong with it - he literally just took it away uneaten and came back with dessert menus lol. (I ordered a seafood hot pot with lemongrass broth, and it was missing the broth.) We all chuckled, and my daughter and I decided that was a good reason to order 2 desserts apiece! There is always more food to be found on a cruise, right?

The Dawn goes to really interesting places and has unique itineraries, which is more important to us now. I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to avoid sailing on her again, but I also wouldn't pick her for a non-interesting itinerary like the Caribbean.

1 hour ago, amypintx said:

@cmph Thanks for the info! Did you go to Berlin from Warnemunde or just stay in the town? 

We elected not to go to Berlin. My husband didn't think we'd be able to do it justice in one day, with all the travel time to get there. I was fine with that, b/c it was the 2nd to last stop on a port-intensive 10 night itinerary (no sea days at all), and I figured our teens would be very disinterested in such an early rise and long day. (Accurate!!) We did the Schwerin Castle excursion that runs for 6 hours and loved that. We did a mix of NCL excursions, where it made sense, and OYO this trip, and this was definitely a good tour. Our guide was born and raised in East Germany, so the bus ride was full of fascinating stories of her life and the area. The castle and grounds were gorgeous, and we had time in the town of Schwerin to eat/shop a bit. 

Our tour was back at 3pm, so we had time to spend a few hours in Warnemunde too. It was really a very cute little beach town! and literally just walk right off the ship and you're there. We ate at a waterside restaurant, browsed in some shops, and went to the strange strawberry place the ship docks next to. Some German strawberry company has little stands all over, and they had this larger store/cafe right there, almost like a Cracker Barrel (but with strawberry alcoholic drinks - I got a beer with strawberry syrup). We did not go to the beach itself, which I slightly regret, in retrospect. 

I won't even begin to attempt to wade into what's allowed/not allowed by German/EU/etc. laws. However, I do think there is something weird with the way NCL handles German ports. We had 2 different German ports in a row on the Dawn this summer, and we had to have passports with us when we got off the ship at one port but not the other. It made no sense to me. We weren't overnight in either of them. So maybe there is more to the story with the German ports. 

NCL puts dock/tender info into the confirmation email with your cruise details. The confirmation email will have a pdf attachment with the itinerary, and there is a "dock/tender" column for each port. (That's not to say that a change is impossible, of course, before someone else chimes in to make a note of that.) I overlooked this until someone else pointed it out on the NCL forum. So even if you don't have the info before booking, you will have it in advance of the cruise. 

We did an NCL Baltic with a mostly-different itinerary this past summer and hit all of our ports as scheduled, no changes, no tenders. Warnemunde was the only one port we visited that is also on this itinerary; that dock was literally right there by the town and train station. I don't think there is any way a ship could tender there, tbh. Cute little town!

We thought the Dawn was fine. We didn't think the food was great, but it wasn't across the board bad, and the entertainment options weren't really our speed, but for a port-intensive Baltic - it was a good floating hotel. There was plenty of storage in the staterooms, everything in the rooms was in pretty good shape, comfy beds IMO, shower was a decent size for an older ship. I wouldn't choose it for an itinerary with a lot of days at sea, for my family anyway (2 teens and 2 adults). The kids pool area was cute, so I actually think families with younger kids might be pretty happy on a quieter ship with that amenity. Not sure what aspects of the ship matter most to you, but happy to provide more details if you have specific questions. 

53 minutes ago, Ladyshopper23 said:

We had a couple of isolated incidents of missing cheese on the Star,  but this was sorted by the special diets coordinator, and were relatively isolated incidents. It happened pretty much every day on Dawn, and it starts to make you wonder that if the special diets chefs can't get this right, what else is going wrong with the meal you don't know about?

 

I'm laughing at the confusion about bacon and shrimp but not at all surprised!

But yes, this part that I quoted here - exactly!! It really makes you question what the heck is going on, very nerve-wracking. It was irritating when they seemed so put off that anyone would ask for something off-menu or altered, but it was down right weird when they got confused and/or changed things up without warning. There is a steak on the standing menu, labeled gf, that my son pre-ordered two different nights. He liked it just fine the first time, but also - there just weren't many options to choose from, and for a 10nt cruise, repeats were basically unavoidable for them. Anyway, when he got it the 2nd time, maybe 4 or 5 nights after the 1st time - it was missing the sauce. He hadn't gotten sick from the sauce, and it was on the menu as gf with that sauce, but did someone else think the sauce wasn't gf? Did someone accidentally gluten the sauce that night? who knows. 

In the end, neither of them got sick, but it was such an annoying experience, as a parent and spouse. I am sure my husband thought it was even more annoying than me, since he was experiencing it both personally and as a parent. Ironically, my son says he didn't think the food quality was as unimpressive as the rest of us thought. It's a good thing he isn't picky! But he also ate the entire large stash of protein bars we brought for the two of them, on top of eating in ports at safe places I found, b/c there are only so many O'Sheehans burgers on a gf bagel that a teenager can eat LOL.

On 9/6/2023 at 7:15 AM, Ladyshopper23 said:

We were so disappointed. I'd been raving to everyone about how good our experience had been in November with the special diets coordinator, and everything I've read suggests that every ship has one.

Definitely not on Dawn though. I even wrote a letter to the food and beverage director to ask the question, and to provide some constructive feedback about other GF issues we were experiencing onboard. She very kindly came and found us, and had a long chat. She totally understood, as she is gluten intolerant herself. However, she's fairly new to NCL, and had never heard of a special diets coordinator. She brought the restaurant manager to the chat, and he said that prior to covid they'd had them, but since then not so much.

To be honest, it didn't sound he really knew much, but I found it very odd that the sister ship of the one we were on had one, but not this one. 

Our eating experience on Dawn was not great, in fact it was quite hard work. We found one maitre d who was very good with special diets and pre-orders, so we stuck to the one restaurant he was in. Our best meal of the cruise was in Los Lobos, the speciality mexican restaurant. The maitre d in there really knew his stuff including about cross contamination, and pretty much everything on the menu was either already GF, or could be adapted quite easily. The food in there was gorgeous.

If I'd been a first time cruiser, especially on NCL, I would have found the whole eating experience really hard work, as no-one was particularly forthcoming about things. It's only through our own knowledge of cruising NCL before that we knew you could ask for GF pizza and pasta in the buffet for example, and GF bagels, toast, cookies and muffins at breakfast. 

They must have had supply issues, as there was no individual wrapped portions of butter in the buffet until day 8 of the cruise. Before that it was in a big bowl right next to the bread, a huge no no. When we finally got a member of staff to understand why we needed fresh butter, it took 15 minutes, and the poor guy had to go all the way down to deck 3 to get it. We remedied this by buying our own butter and jam at a port stop, which definitely made life easier!

We've gone from really looking forward to our Getaway cruise in October to be wary of it, and this is all down to the lack of special diets coordinator and poor gluten free dining experience on Dawn as a result. Having the special diets coordinator is something that really sets NCL apart from other cruise lines (something I put in my blog write up and also in my letter to the food and beverage director).

I'm really hoping that our experience on Dawn was unusual, and it will be back to having fab dining on the Getaway. Fingers crossed!

I'm really sorry to hear that you didn't have great luck on the Dawn. We chatted back and forth in a previous thread after my family went on the Dawn in June/July (with similar supply issues, etc.). So odd that it's just the Dawn, but I guess that's why our issues seemed so at odds with everything else we read up on. We *did* ask for (some) things, and it was still so difficult to get them!

I wonder if we also liked the same maitre'd? (I believe his name was Ernesto.) If it hadn't been for him, the entire experience would have been far more frustrating, as he did what he could with the limited tools at his disposal. At least for my husband and son - eating meat helped, b/c all the marked items seemed to be meat-based entrees. Being a vegetarian must have made it much harder.

3 hours ago, Velvetwater said:

Hi 

 

Last time we were with NCL on the Jade in Europe they had things like congee rice porridge and curry for breakfast. Do they still do this? We also enjoyed the biscuits n gravy.

 

The lunch and dinner options also had  good range of daal and curry and South East Asian classics each day like Adobo and fried noodles etc.

 

Is this still the case? Will be on the dawn doing the Baltics in 2 weeks.

 

Thanks

We were on the June 22nd 10nt Baltic on the Dawn, and yes, they did! They had one Indian dish plus chapatis at breakfast. It wasn't the same dish everyday but always tasty (and always vegetarian). It was by the congee, and they were only on ONE side of the buffet. I didn't find it the first couple of days, as a result. (Certainly possible that it'll move, but it was the buffet line on the right side as you enter.)

I don't recall eating lunch in the buffet ever. We didn't have any sea days so we were always in port, and we ate in the MDR on embarkation day. Can't help there.

For dinner, they definitely had at least a couple of Indian dishes plus rice and accompaniments every night. The daal is really good. I found the Indian food in the buffet to be much better than the MDR dinners. There were other Asian things near it, too. 

1 hour ago, ceilidh1 said:

What on earth is that gray blob on top? It looks like seagull ca-ca. Please tell me it's not meant to be cream?

56 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

It was crunchy but I don’t know what it was. Mystery garnish. 

My husband says "that looks like a flat, wet souffle" and wants to know why there are coconut flakes lol. We had this on the Dawn a few weeks ago, and it was fine and also definitely did not have coconut flakes or that weird blob. However, they did have some struggles in the creme brulee department, as the raspberry version two of us had in Cagney's were basically mousse. Super weird. 

Glad you finally got a good, protein-included entree. They must have googled vegetarian protein sources ha!

Lurker here, coming out of hiding. 🙂 First off, I love your reports! I have always wanted to go to Iceland, and every time I come on CC and read your latest updates, I get more and more interested. Gorgeous photos, and thank you for sharing with all of us!

I had to comment b/c of the food. We were on the Dawn a few weeks ago (10nt Baltic), and while I don't think our food was quite as bad as yours, we also did not think it was good. (We did have some highlights - crepes, Indian on the buffet, Le Bistro, Moderno, but found the MDRs largely disappointing.) One of the issues was that they struggled to adapt to supply problems. I wondered if this was ship specific but now wonder if it's an NCL issue. 

For meat/fish/poultry, when they ran out, they subbed menu items that made sense (ex: ran out of chicken breasts, subbed a chicken thigh dish). For other things, though, they might employ odd conservation measures (cutting bananas for the buffet, which then got brown fast so no one ate them) or try to force in an alternative ingredient without warning. I'm thinking of your beet green salad here! For us, it was arugula. OMG they used that everywhere for the first few days of our cruise; it became comedic. It was subbed in for regular greens in salads, it garnished entrees, it was the green on the basic meat/cheese sandwiches on the buffet. I like arugula just fine, but it's a distinct flavor and doesn't belong in everything! Anyway, my pescatarian daughter really struggled, especially once eggs began to be conserved. I am sure some meat/potatoes people on our cruise didn't notice a thing.

I hope that things get better!

I'm afraid I cannot help with this specific port, but you may luck out and find that NCL offers a free shuttle. This happened for the port we visited in June marketed as Kotka in Finland (but really Hamina). Public transport (taxis, buses, etc.) did not go into the secured port area, and passengers were not allowed to leave the ship unless they had an excursion or were boarding the NCL shuttle (literally right next to the ship). Of course the NCL excursions had booked up in advance, and what were they going to do with all the people left out? I think NCL kind of had no option but to provide the shuttle for free!

It's definitely a bit frustrating that they do not provide info about shuttles in advance. I have read here on CC about shuttles (that NCL charges for) in the European ports, but it never seems like people know in advance if they will be offered.

Crossing fingers for you. 🙂